3D displays typified by 3D (three-dimensional) television sets have found widespread use. A 3D display provides a stereoscopic image by showing images, one for the right eye and another for the left eye, to a user. Although there are a plurality of types of three-dimensional displays, the widespread ones have a user wear eyeglasses through which an image appears differently to the left and right eyes of the user. According to image processing technology in recent years, it has become possible to create left and right eye images by adding arithmetic operations to a 2D (two-dimensional) image.
With the improvement of the functions and performance of digital cameras, a format has been stipulated to record a plurality of pieces of correlated image data altogether. The standard laid down by the Camera & Imaging Products Association defines a data structure for recording a plurality of pieces of image data and stipulates a format called “Multi-Picture Format” using this data structure. In Multi-Picture Format, “multi-view” is defined as an image type. Multi-view has a “stereopsis” type as a subdivision. This image type is selected when the user specifies the capture mode at the time of image capture by a digital camera. Two pieces of image data captured are combined into a single image file including an image type code by internal circuitry of the digital camera.